Tales of an Aussie girl teaching English in Paris

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TEFL Interviews – second round

Of my interviews, BTL and ICB were the only contenders. After my Wednesday interview, BTL called me back on the Friday to organise an interview on Monday with a gentleman called Paul, who would be asking me pedagogical questions.

We met at 9am, and he asked me a number of questions, including the following:

How would you use a newspaper article in a lesson?

Explain the difference between the present perfect and the past simple.

What would you do to make a shy student more confident?

What games could you play in the classroom?

What information would you need to know about your students before the class begins?

How would you expose your students to different accents?

How much would you use course books in a class?

How would you structure your average lesson?

Luckily, Renée had asked me the first three questions in my first interview, so I had ready-made answers for those. As for the others, I had revised some of my TEFL course on the weekend, so I was quite confident by the end of the interview.

Afterwards, Paul went to speak to Renée about me. After a few minutes he returned, saying that she was on the phone to the company director, but that I shouldn’t be waiting for too long, and gave me a course book to look over.

Sometime later, Paul returned and said that the company director wanted to meet me. I panicked inwardly – did Renée tell Paul that she’d asked me the same questions? Was I in trouble for cheating?

When the director was ready, I was escorted to his office. I entered the room meekly – like entering the principal’s office – but he immediately put me at ease. A tall, tanned man with impeccably styled, greying hair, he was the very image of a French businessman from the Riviera. Then he started speaking to me in a Cheltenham accent (English Cheltenham, not Australian Cheltenham). We sat on opposite sides of his desk, and he asked me to tell him about myself – education, work experience, teaching experience, etc. Every time I started a sentence, he would start talking and go off on a tangent for about 5mins, then remind himself that he was learning about me and ask me another question (which would lead to him going off on another tangent). As a result, it was the most enjoyable interview I’ve ever had – he was very entertaining and there were a lot of laughs.

Later he said that he really didn’t need to interview me – Paul and Renée already wanted to hire me – but just wanted to meet me to see what type of person I was, and whether students were likely to come back to see me for class week after week (he thought they would). He called Renée in her office to organise a time for me to come back to receive my official offer of employment and, after two hours of interviewing, I had a two hour break before I had to return and shake hands.

To celebrate my triumph (and to give my poor, blistered feet a rest after two days walking in heels) I decided to go out for lunch. After walking for another 45mins in heels (it took that long to find a place that looked decent with spare tables), I sat down in a brassiere. After 10mins I was reminded why I don’t like to eat out alone. The waiter approached me and I asked for the menu.

“For food?” he asked.

“. . . yes.”

Then he took one of the blackboards with the menu from the wall, sat it on the chair opposite me, and started to read it aloud to me in English. The two chic French women on the table next to me looked on. I was mortified!

Luckily I had an ‘official offer’ meeting to brighten my spirits. So, the verbal offer was made on the Monday afternoon, and I signed my contract on the Tuesday morning. The next two mornings I was at the office for induction activities.

Wednesday’s induction was with an awesome American called Dan for three or four hours. He told me about the school, did a grammar refresher course (my grammar’s quite good, but he went through the six main grammar questions that French students ask and gave me succinct answers for them so I already have them on hand), and brainstormed some classroom activities. We then picked up the folders for my first scheduled lessons (next Tuesday) and I did some lesson plans for them, on which he provided feedback. We then went to the teachers’ lounge and bemoaned French bureaucracy and how difficult it can be to get set up (I’m struggling with the bank account, but that can wait for another post).

On Thursday I had Microsoft Outlook training with an English guy called Jeffrey (very cute in his mid-thirties with greying hair – no wedding ring, but I can’t tell if he’s gay or not. He’s very well groomed and very proper, but he might just be English). As I’ve had a number of office jobs, this didn’t take very long, and we then went onto my lesson plans for next week. After briefly looking at what I did yesterday, we returned to the teachers’ lounge and he pulled out useful worksheet after useful worksheet, and showed me useful book after useful book, and gave me useful classroom activity idea after useful classroom activity idea – they were all great, but I’m just not sure how to fit them into my courses with the course book, without overwhelming the students.

The good things about the Outlook training were that I got to see my calendar, which is filling up quickly. On Wednesday I had two hour-and-a-half classes next week. Now I have 16 hours worth of classes (once I’m settled in, it should be around 20-25 hours a week – at €16.5 an hour, this is less than I was earning in London, but I suppose that’s the price I’ll pay for living in Paris) and the first one is on Monday. Wish me luck!